It has been interesting to watch the tabloids switching from cheerleading Angelina Jolie for her empowering decision to divorce Brad Pitt, to seeing her as destroying the lives of her children. There are a number of factors which explain this, but one critical factor is that Jolie has a track record of not only breaking up marriages, but being unable to remain married. Feminists have been wildly successful at teaching us to react in horror at concepts like “she can’t keep a man”, but since reality can’t be brainwashed the risk of this concept creeping back is ever present. This kind of badthink is ironically more of a risk for women than for men, because while Team Woman is real, women also are in fierce intra sexual competition.

Back in September Drake Baer at NY Mag tried to stop the bleeding with an article titled Angelina’s Divorce Shows How ‘Failed Marriages’ Are Failing Us. Baer’s thesis is that divorce and broken homes only cause harm because we misperceive them as failure. Baer argues for a new morality, where staying married is immoral and divorce is heroic:

It would be more generous to everybody involved to allow that divorce could be a courageous, positive act. To quote Louis C.K., “No good marriage has ever ended in divorce.” Like Vicki Larson, author of The New I Do: Reshaping Marriage for Skeptics, Realists and Rebels, argues, it would be absurd to think that sticking it out in a sexless, alcoholic, and abusive relationship until somebody dies is success, while sharing a respectful, loving bond for 5, 10, or 50 years and then realizing that you’ve grown apart is failure.

…

While we can’t know the full circumstances of Jolie and Pitt’s dynamic, we do know that, in some cases, staying married shows an incapacity to do what’s in the best interest of yourself, your partner, and your kids.

This of course is a very common argument today. Baer pairs this with an equally common rationalization, that while lifetime marriage once was feasible, longer modern lifetimes make lifetime marriage no longer reasonable:

To put the grand institution of marriage into context, it’s useful to note that “till death do us part” used to be a lot more immediate…

Zooming into the United States, the colonial era saw American marriages lasting under 12 years on average: Between childbirth, communicable disease, and natural disaster, people had a habit of dying way younger. One of the great miracles of the 20th century was the increase in lifespan, shooting up over 25 years, on average, in the U.S…

Thanks to increases in medicine and decreases in war, you can’t count on death to dissolve a marriage; it comes through divorce.

I haven’t been able to locate the original source of the claimed 12 year average for marriages in the colonial era*, but even stipulating that for the sake of argument, Jolie hasn’t been married for a total of 12 years even if you add up all three of her failed marriages. Given her past average, even a fourth marriage wouldn’t put her over the combined 12 year mark.

Even worse for the claim that longevity is the reason for the divorce revolution is the fact that divorce rates are by far the highest in the younger age brackets. No matter how hard men like Baer and his peers in the media try to sell the idea of grey divorce, the reality is divorce is rare in the very age groups which this argument assumes is driving the divorce revolution. Divorce is considered empowering for women in their 20s and 30s, when their chances of remarriage are still fairly good. Once women reach their 40s as Jolie has, their chances of both divorce and remarriage have dropped dramatically and continue to do so.

But the biggest threat to Baer’s argument is the fact that no matter how hard we try to pretend that divorce doesn’t represent a failure, it always will. If we really believed that breaking up families isn’t harmful, we wouldn’t bother with the idea of marriage in the first place. No matter how much feminists try to convince us that children don’t need a father in the home, we all know better. Even worse for Baer, those women who didn’t fail to keep their families intact will always be at risk of pointing this quite obvious fact out. And even when other women remain silent, the women who failed will always know that other women are secretly thinking these thoughts feminists have tried so hard to banish.

*The link provided points to an article identifying Stephanie Coontz as the source of the statistic, but does not name her data source or state where she made this claim.

What that kind of argument overlooks, of course, is that if marriage really is taken, up-front, as an “as long as I feel like it” thing, there’s really no reason at all to get married.

That is, it’s one thing to conceive of marriage as being intended to be permanent and yet be very permissive as to dissolving it. That’s the current conception, which is what he is complaining about. The idea is that it is at least *intended* to be permanent at the beginning, because that’s the consensus conception of the intended commitment. Of course, this has been de facto emptied of meaning due to no fault divorce laws, but despite the presence of no-fault divorce, the social conception is that it is at least *intended* to be permanent … unless “something goes wrong”.

This is an important distinction, because it makes no sense to provide the kinds of social, legal and other benefits that we bestow on marriage if it is essentially no different — even in concept, leaving aside divorce law — from any other relationship in *intention*. That is the case, the social conception is that non-marital relationships are *not* intended to be permanent in any way — they are intended to last as long as both parties want them to. Now, de facto, no-fault divorce marriage works that way, too, in that it lasts as long as both parties want it to, but the social conception of it is that it at least *intended* for it to be permanent when entered into — that is what justifies the special treatment as compared to unmarried couples. If you take the logic of no fault divorce a step further, which is what he is doing, and openly conceive of marriage as fundamentally impermanent in intention from the inception, the justification for treating married people differently from other couples disappears completely.

He may miss this (wouldn’t surprise me, given how utterly rock-headed most journalists seem to be) or he isn’t bothered by it in the sense that he would welcome a kind of withering away of marriage. After all, if the relationship is fundamentally the same as a non-marital one, in intention as well as fact, why should there be disparate treatment? Doesn’t the prime directive of equality scream out for JUSTICE over this disparate treatment?

…the social conception is that it is at least *intended* to be permanent … unless “something goes wrong”.

Exactly. This is why marriage has to be redefined to something not intended to be permanent, because if that is the intent then divorce by definition is failure.

Even worse, we still have the double think (treblethink? quadruplethink?) around divorce and broken homes, blaming “absent fathers” for “abandoning” their families while simultaneously asserting that:

1) Easy divorce is a feminist triumph and represents empowerment for women.
2) Our family court process is gender neutral and “fair” to both men and women.
3) Divorce is required to punish bad men who harm their wives.
4) What is fair to the parents doesn’t matter, because the family court process is all about the children.
5) Divorce is required because people (women) fall out of love, and no one is responsible for that.

It has been interesting to watch the tabloids switching from cheerleading Angelina Jolie for her empowering decision to divorce Brad Pitt, to seeing her as destroying the lives of her children.

with this:

No matter how much feminists try to convince us that children don’t need a father in the home, we all know better.

This is anecdotal, and concerns an area in which I have little knowledge; but a friend of mine that studied for an advanced Psychology degree told me this. It makes such a big difference for the welfare of the child to have a father in the home, that it doesn’t matter if he does basically nothing other than have a presence. The kids with even a do-nothing father at home, who does little to raise them, fared better in the long run than the kids with no father figure in the home at all. I’m guessing an abusive father figure would undermine this assessment, but my friend indicated the general principle holds in case study after case study.

Some guys here probably know a lot about this subject, I don’t, but I can grasp a basic truth here just from life experience.

“Exactly. This is why marriage has to be redefined to something not intended to be permanent, because if that is the intent then divorce by definition is failure.”

This reminds me of a sci fi novel, the name of which I forget, where a man is reaching the end of his 5 year marriage contract and is fretting because his wife has told him she doesn’t wish to renew it and is already shopping for his replacement. I assume that story was written before no fault divorce (with its associated cash and prizes for her) became the law of the land. So while that passage in the old novel was meant to be “pushing the envelope” as an attempt to shock the reader, little did the author know that the reality in the not so distant future would be far more extreme. Of course, we still go through with the wedding pageantry where the bride and groom exchange vows that are not enforced by anyone (and are not believed by anyone in the congregation), in many cases not even by the Christian denominations under whose auspices they were exchanged and where not even an annulment is required to walk down the aisle again. Going even further, I have had the “pleasure” of attending secular weddings were vows of fidelity and permanence are NOT exchanged, and are replaced with saccharine professions of infatuation and how “you complete me” and “you are amazing”

Though I suppose that one could see a time limited “marriage contract” as finally admitting what we already know: that these days few (women in particular, though the same can be said of far too many men) truly believe in forsaking all others and remaining together until death do you part and that couples are expected to divorce, because “reasons”

“Can you imagine the next guy that Jolie meets. Just knowing that Brad Pitt wasn’t good enough”

Not to mention the fact that she is very post wall and maimed herself. That said, this is Hollyweird, so I expect she’ll get some dude to put a ring on it and he’ll thing he’s the luckiest guy in the world … until he realizes that it’s actually the opposite.

Though I suppose that one could see a time limited “marriage contract” as finally admitting what we already know: that these days few (women in particular, though the same can be said of far too many men) truly believe in forsaking all others and remaining together until death do you part and that couples are expected to divorce, because “reasons”

Right, hence the talk of starter marriages, the phenomenon of divorce parties and so on.

It would be more honest if we had time-limited marriages which are renewable with mutual consent at expiry, but otherwise end *without liability* at the end of the fixed term. Of course we won’t get there because (1) the culture likes to pretend that marriages are still permanent (hence the importance of the intention) because this is romantic and sole-mate-ish and all of that garbage that our culture associates with marriage and (2) doing so would prevent women from men to cash out their lives in divorces.

“Can you imagine the next guy that Jolie meets. Just knowing that Brad Pitt wasn’t good enough”

The divorce may actually be a way for her to preserve what remains of her self confidence. She’s already has double mastectomy, and whatever she has sticking out on her chest are two bags of silicone. The feel, the look and the function are different from the real thing. She knows it, and Brad does, too.
She may have also noticed that Brad has been using high doses of Viagra of late, just to get to where he used to get to without assistance in the past. Or maybe he doesn’t even bother her anymore. He’s Brad Pitt, after all; young and beautiful women with complete body parts are throwing themselves at him at every turn. Why play pretend with a mutilated post-wall hag.
She probably realized that it is only a matter of time before he kicks her to the curb. The same way he did Jennifer, her predecessor. So, she thought a preemptive strike might create a façade that she is the one doing the dumping, rather than he.
We’ve seen this movie before.

2.3 million couples marry every year in the US.
1.3 million of those marriages end in divorce.
They blow on average $20K for the wedding and about $2K on both wedding bands.
The rate of divorce is declining in the US every year.
The rate of marriage is declining drastically along with it.

Those are some really horrible odds of success, the knowledge of which even the most Christian of mothers and fathers today are still reluctant to impart on their sons.

Comedian Bill Burr captures this perfectly with the skydiving analogy. If you went skydiving and you knew 50% of the shutes just won’t open, then you’d be like “eff it, I’m not goin'”!

Needless to say most sons out there are not Brad Pitt, and most will never attract and marry an already ridiculously wealthy Angelina Jolie wife.

As long as marriages are failing at a rate of 55%+, and as those so called “loving” wives out there are filing no fault divorce papers at a rate of 75-80% of all divorces, then marriage is officially unsafe for men, and should be avoided at all costs. Co-habitation with women should be avoided with equal fervor.

Novaseeker’s expansion of Dalrock’s original post is a rock-solid addition. What possible rationale is there for surrounding wives with all the legal protection that we do, when there’s no fundamental difference between a wife and a girlfriend?

The only reason it would ever make sense to do that is if we accept the premise that a woman gives up something fleeting in exchange for something permanent, so her long-term interests deserve protection in the event that the man decides not to “pay up” after she’s delivered on her end.

We all understand that the “fleeting things” the woman gives up are her youthful beauty and fertility in exchange for permanent protection and provision… once they’ve been given they can never be retrieved, so whatever man gets them is obligated to keep loving her even after her “assets” fade (see Proverbs 5 and Malachi 2).

But feminism has declared that a woman’s marital assets are her property (most definitely NOT her husband’s), and may be withdrawn at any time for any reason, or even given to someone else with no recourse. If that’s the case – if the title of wife does not confer the obligations of being a wife – there is no reason to hold any man to the obligations of being a husband just because he holds the title… especially if he was stripped of even the title by the woman in question.

If marriages can be redefined and socially accepted as intrinsically impermanent than they will be closer in concept to unmarried cohabitating couples or unmarried couples with children. If it’s all meant to be temporary anyhow then what’s the difference? That will give the courts greater justification to impose their family court rulings on them. The courts are not going to want to see their power dwindle along with the marriage rate. Canada is currently pioneering alimony for unmarried couples.

Check out the Baer article referenced. There’ a photo of Angelina. She’s beginning to hit the wall. Soon she’ll be lamenting the notion that women are only judged for their beauty – just like Renee Zellweger has been doing recently. Feminism really does not work out well for older women whose looks have gone……

Of course not. MGTOWs are more an anti-marriage than anyone else, including PUAs and MRAs…

While adsgamer has made impressive strides in deprogramming, he is still troubled that he apparently has not gotten his age 30+ daughters married off, because they overestimated their MMV and waited too long…

The reality is that women like Zellweger and Jolie do fine — they are outliers. These are among the most beautiful women in their age ranges, so they still do fine. As well as when they were 25? No, of course not. But it’s not like they are going to be looking at cats and dregs men — they’re at the top of the list at their age ranges.

That isn’t the case for the *average* woman who divorces in her 40s, however, who is not an outlier. The average woman IS looking at cats and dregs. These women are not, because they are outliers. No need to confuse the two, it just makes the point about average women, which is almost all women, muddier and weaker when we claim that outlier women are in the same boat, when they are not.

A few weeks ago I compiled a list of many of the hottest famous women of the 90s, and how after 1-4 marriages, they just stopped being married. They could no longer get what they were used to, so just stay unmarried rather than go too far down the scale…

The list was long. It comprised of at least half of the 90s beauties that once had the attention of millions of men..

I am sure you could dig up more, but you get the idea. It is a 50% or more outcome for the most famous attractive women of yesteryear, who had the most choice of all, and for a longer duration than the average woman. That is why they had second, third, and sometimes even fourth chances at marriage, but at 45 or so, the prospects of acceptable quality just ran out..

The few smart ones who only got married once and stayed married (like Kathy Ireland) are a minority. The ones who divorced once or twice, but then settled with their final man, are also there. But many just never remarried after their final divorce…

Major Styles says:
November 17, 2016 at 1:57 pm“Can you imagine the next guy that Jolie meets. Just knowing that Brad Pitt wasn’t good enough…

Four women walked out on Clark Gable. Ronald Reagan’s first wife divorced him because she didn’t think he was going to go very far. Women in the vast majority of cases can’t be made fully happy even briefly, or happy at all after a modest amount of time. So, don’t try very hard to make them happy, or get upset at yourself when the inevitable “I’m unhaaaaaapy” (and it’s all YOUR fault!!!!!!!!” mentally-ill libelous lie is spewed at you. Accept that relationships with women with whom you don’t share ancestors is going to be temporary, and arrange things so when they’re gone, your life as you know it doesn’t go with them.

Right, because their standards/expectations are very high and the men who satisfy them don’t need to *marry* women in their 40s. It isn’t the case that they end up with dregs or alone, though. They just end up dating around and being with men but not remarrying because of very high standards and expectations and the men who satisfy those having better options.

It’s not at all the same for the average Sally who divorces at 41. Average Sally would happily date and marry the men the top women at 41 reject for marriage (but who would gladly marry them) as being below standards/expectations, but average Sally isn’t on the radar screen of these guys because she is below their own standards/expectations, so she either dates and/or remarries with lesser guys, or stays with cats, depending on how comfortable she is with being alone.

The hot 41s end up dating/relationshipping around but *marrying* is hard due to high expectations and the fact that the men who satisfy that level of expectations won’t marry even a top tier 41 yo because they can get a top tier younger woman. It’s still very different from the situation average Sally is facing. In fact, average Sally looks at Angelina and the rest of your list and sees who they are with on a week to week basis in tabloids when she is at the supermarket and thinks “I want me some of that”, but then ends up with dregs and cats after divorcing. That’s where average Sally gets swindled.

What is wrong is to equate the situation of these two differently situated women. One set can date and relationship with men almost all women their own age would die to date, but can’t marry these guys because they have better options. The other set can’t even date these guys, and is stuck with dregs and cats. They are both stuck, but to say “they’re all stuck with cats” is innacurate. The hot ones are dating around and sleeping with desirable men — they just can’t marry them. They’re back on the carousel. The not hot ones can’t get back on the carousel and are stuck, but they decide to divorce based on the idea that they can get back on the carousel just like they see the tabloid women in their 40s doing. That’s the difference.

(1) the culture likes to pretend that marriages are still permanent (hence the importance of the intention) because this is romantic and sole-mate-ish and all of that garbage that our culture associates with marriage.

Marriages are permanent – for men. Even after they no longer are for their wives. The ultimate adhesion contract. Their bank accounts can readily attest to this fact.

OK, adding a few more that are noteworthy enough to warrant an addendum :

It occurs to me that it would probably be much easier for you to keep a list of Hollyweird women who have remained in long-term martiages and just assume that all of the others fit the criteria that your current (increasingly unwieldy) list is based on.

“it would be absurd to think that sticking it out in a sexless, alcoholic, and abusive relationship until somebody dies is success, while sharing a respectful, loving bond for 5, 10, or 50 years and then realizing that you’ve grown apart is failure.”

Life IS a lot harder when you’re married to a succession of obvious strawmen. False equivalences can wound as deeply as an affair in such cases.

While it is undoubtedly true that washed up Hollyweird has-beenettes over the age of 40 can have their pick of younger boy-toys, that is ALL they are or will ever be. To these boy-toys, these hags are just booty calls with fat bank accounts, sugar mamas, high-class dick garages. There is ZE-RO interest in a committed relationship. If that’s all these women want, then that’s fine. Methinks, though, that as the years progress and fewer and fewer men are interested in riding a horse that’s become dog food grade (plastic surgery and cosmetics can only impede Mother Nature and Father Time for so long), reality is going to hit like an atom bomb. Cats and anti-depressants by the shovelful will become the center of daily life.

I can’t believe there are supposedly ‘red pill’ people who still think that getting pumped and dumped by a boy toy is still a demonstration of high SMV by an aging actress. People who are ‘red pill’ are supposed to see the cougar myth for the fiction it is, rather than sustain it.

Demi got used, and everyone knew it all along. None of the others marry a man younger than her and stay with him for the long haul. Sure, they still get on the carousel, but have nowhere near the marriage prospects they used to have. Vanessa Marcil may get used similarly, but this is a low MMV demonstration on her part.

All of the 25+ women listed have been single for years after their final divorce. Being a pump and dump so that some Hollywood-area PUA can say ‘I banged xxxxxxx’ is their only purpose..

A anthropologists point out to us that Baer’s “new morality” is in fact old morality. It is older than marriage, which sprang up independently wih the economic system independently in 5 civilisations, and very, very quickly became associated with worship of the One God.
Angelina Jolie is damaged. Very much so. Beginning with her mother allowing her to cohabit with a boyfriend at 14 to her early (satanic) initiation into Hollywood soon after, she has progressively grown creepier over time. The effect can be seen on Pitt: he married her fresh-faced and has increasingly looked like a homeless person. Jolie’s “He abused the children!”, is despicable and straight out of the trailer park trash heap where Jolies morals obviously are.
Then again, it would be naive to expect morals from someone who has been gradually chopping bits off here and sacrificing them to Satan.

The fact that divorce was accepted in the Protestant world made it acceptable in the Jewish world also. Divorce would be the classic example of where shaming someone worked very well. People would whisper “she is divorced” under their breath as if some horrible unspeakable monster had been let loose. Poland is a mainly Catholic country the fact that divorce was considered as a horrible demon had the effect on Jews that Jews also simply did not get divorced except under extreme circumstances.

More seriously, even in their marriages, while their Husband’s aren’t necessarily A-list still, even when they got married, their Husband was above them in the Hollyweird rankings. Plus, and this is probably the most important part, their appearances in People Magazine have been significantly lower since they got married. Thus, they’ve prioritized their children over their Vanity. Makes for a lot more stable marriage.

If one moved over to the Model ranks, I think you’d see a lot more stable marriages, comparatively. Yes, most Models are beautiful Women, but people aren’t stopping them on the street to get a picture. BIG difference in the Vanity fluffing.

“Hollywood actresses in their 40s are often prettier than regular women in their 20s. Plus they have fame, money, glamour. They can hook younger boy toys.”

You don’t seem to realize that those relationships benefit the boy toys far more than they benefit the cougars. When women see a man with a woman they admire, it instantly makes those women want that man.

“Demi Moore lost her boy toy… ”

To a woman 21 years her junior.

“… but he was a star actor in his own right.”

And being seen with Demi Moore was a big boost to his career.

“Had Ms. Moore found a younger cop or construction worker or surf instructor, she’d likely still have him around to play with.”

1. Hypergamy won’t allow that. Women want men whose social status is higher than their own, not lower.
2. How’d that work out for Christie Brinkley?

“In 1996, to architect Peter Halsey Cook… Brinkley was 42 and Cook 37… The divorce proceedings, held in 2008, attracted media attention after Cook admitted that he had committed adultery with eighteen-year-old Diana Bianchi.”

Keep in mind that, in her prime, Christie Brinkley was one of the most beautiful women in the world.

By the way, the 18-year-old tart with whom Cook cheated on Brinkley married some poor chump 11 years later.

“Like Vicki Larson, author of The New I Do: Reshaping Marriage for Skeptics, Realists and Rebels, argues, it would be absurd to think that sticking it out in a sexless, alcoholic, and abusive relationship until somebody dies is success, while sharing a respectful, loving bond for 5, 10, or 50 years and then realizing that you’ve grown apart is failure.”

One of the biggest problems with seeing marriage as anything other than lifelong is that a “loving bond” becomes impossible. If your spouse is endlessly contemplating whether he/she is better off staying or leaving, you don’t have a true marriage. What you have is endless manipulation, and world-class selfishness. Why should a wife uproot herself and her children to move to Cleveland with a husband who has just been transferred if the husband is always “thinking out loud” about whether or not the marriage has been a “good deal” for him so far? Why should a husband agree to buy a larger house in a better school district if his wife won’t shut up about how her ex-boyfriend from college is now a multi-millionaire? The idea that everybody should have as many chances as they want at marriage has destabilized our society, and makes it much harder for people to “settle down.” People now get married and keep looking for something better because they can easily get out of any marriage that they happen to be in at the time that their alleged “soul mate” shows up.

*******************************************

@Looking Glass & @Oscar: I personally wouldn’t be surprised to learn that women with names like “Sarah”, “Hannah”, “Cornelia”, etc., are more likely to have lasting marriages than “Brandi” and “Tiffani” and “Bambi.” Serious people tend to give their children serious names, and to some extent the child’s name shapes their personality and character.

The idea that everybody should have as many chances as they want at marriage has destabilized our society, and makes it much harder for people to “settle down.” People now get married and keep looking for something better because they can easily get out of any marriage that they happen to be in at the time that their alleged “soul mate” shows up.

I wouldn’t call Sarah Jessica Parker pretty… I limit the list to women who were very attractive in their prime, and hence the center of vast attention…

The real unicorn was Kathy Ireland, who married a man at age 25, and stayed married to him.

But that this list is so short, and the other so long (remember, the long list is of those who have not been married for years, rather than merely married to their second of third husband).

Hell, Zsa Zsa Gabor has been married to the same man for 30 years. But she had 8 (eight) divorces before that. So that doesn’t count as a normal woman – she stayed with the final guy because he is 25+ years younger than her and her health was declining (she is almost 100).

And “Striking Distance” was 23 years ago. My wife once asked me, “If SJP is so ugly, why is she so popular?” I replied, “She’s popular with WOMEN. You don’t see her in movies aimed at men because movies aimed at men require an actor men want to be like and an actress men want to be with. I don’t know any men who want to be with SJP.”

@ Dalrock:

Hi-larious!

@ Original Laura

You may have a point about names. I love watching my kids discover their names in the Bible.

In SJP’s case, it probably helps that she’s ugly by pretty much any standard, so it’s highly unlikely that any of her male peers have any interest in her.

One wonders if she’s got that rare gift of self-awareness and realizes this.

Original Laura says:

@Looking Glass & @Oscar: I personally wouldn’t be surprised to learn that women with names like “Sarah”, “Hannah”, “Cornelia”, etc., are more likely to have lasting marriages than “Brandi” and “Tiffani” and “Bambi.” Serious people tend to give their children serious names, and to some extent the child’s name shapes their personality and character.

Yes. I’ve commented before, here and elsewhere, on the despicable irresponsibility with children’s names demonstrated by later Boomers, Gen-X, and Millennial parents (GOD HELP the children of that last group). Especially repulsive and inexcusable is the trend of unisex names; specifically, giving traditionally male names to girls (e.g. Cameron, Madison, Ryan, even Kyle – yes, Kyle, for flock’s sake!). It’s probably still too early to say for sure with most of these little girls, as the trend has been fairly recent, but I see them growing up to become confused, angry, anti-social feminists. I’ve actually had parents introduce me to their little girls with these unfortumate names. I was in each case sorely tempted to ask “Sweetie, do you have a middle name that is a real little girl’s name that I can call you by? You’re too beautiful to have the boy’s name that your mommy [that’s who normally picks these repulsive names] gave you!”

I am very interested in baby naming trends, etc. It always concerns me when people pick a “trendy” name for a boy, because at this point in my life I have seen too many of these trendy boys’ names turn into trendy girls’ names. The boys who end up with a unisex name that turns into a girly name are absolutely miserable. Girls with unisex names are generally not as distressed by it, but I think that giving a girl a masculine name tends to send a message that you weren’t 100% okay with having had a girl instead of a boy.

Fun fact: prior to the 1984 release of the movie “Splash” – wherein Daryl Hannah’s mermaid character gives that as her name because a street sign for Madison Avenue was the first thing she saw when asked her name – the number of children given the name “Madison” in the United States was ZERO. Source – Babycenter.com

In fact, it was precisely because it was not a girl’s given name (it was only a surname) that made it work as a plot device.

When I was younger I knew some men born between the years 1918-1920 whose first or middle name was “Pershing” (a patriotic gesture in honor of General John J. Pershing, commander of the victorious U.S. Expeditionary Forces during World War I). Apparently this was a popular name for American boys born in the immediate wake of “Tbe War to End All Wars.” Apparently “Winston” was a popular name for baby boys in Britain during World War II in honor of Churchill.

I’m hardpressed to think of a similar inspirational trend for names in modern-era America, which is strange, considering what hero-idolizing, herd-following sheeple Americans tend to be. The grotesque names currently popular among the younger set don’t seem to have originated from any particular pop culture figure. They just somehow “caught on” because they “sounded trendy.” I’m equally hardpressed to believe that very many parents over the last quarter century who named their daughters “Hillary” did so in honor of the she-demon crime family matriarch.

One wonders if SJP continues to play with fire like this if she isn’t gonna soon get third-degree burns (as in Matthew Broderick saying “OK, enough is enough. Play time is over, real life starts now!” as he serves her with divorce papers).

……They, like those listed earlier, have all been unmarried for years. Even if their prospects are still much higher than the average woman, they are lower than before, so the come-down is too difficult to swallow, and singlehood remains the default. They provide short-term hookups and bragging rights to men nowadays, nothing more.

@Feeriker “Marriages are permanent – for men. Even after they no longer are for their wives. The ultimate adhesion contract. Their bank accounts can readily attest to this fact.”

This. All of the debates about when and if divorce should be for Christians are rendered irrelevant for Christian men. You’re married for life in the West whether you like it or not for men. Now women…

You mention how divorce is sold to women, and I think this also touches on how marriage is sold to men and women differently. When it comes to marriage vows “til death do us part,” a man’s word is his bound but it is a woman’s prerogative to change her mind.

For men, marriage is portrayed as a life-long commitment providing them long-term relationship security. For women, marriage is framed as a life-long commitment if they want it to be, but it they don’t like it they can get out of it. It is critical for the narrative that men go into marriage not realizing their wife-to-be considers it her God-given right to leave if and when she decides she wants out because none of them would do so, and I think that is partially why so many men aren’t getting married. Open hypergamy has made it impossible to conceal, and while there are plenty of mechanisms to keep married men in line there are n direct ways unmarried men can be coerced into tying the knot.

In the same way, divorce is sold to women are empowering while to men divorce is portrayed as only something that happens to men who are abusive or had it coming, and only cruel men divorce their wives because they don’t love them.

One of the things that got me on the Red Pill path was asking very pointed, direct questions about this sort of thing and noting the discrepancies.

Do you mind if I share this observation with my pastor and his wife, who are currently facilitating a marriage seminar at church? I would very much like to get their reactions to this (reality-based) perspective, which I will most certainly share here.

@ feeriker: “Shirley” was a big name for girls for a few years just after Shirley Temple rose to fame. Most of the women named Shirley were born in the late 30s. Similarly, the name “Bernadette” was rather obscure and unpopular until the 1940s movie of the same name. Then some Catholic families began to choose it and it became significantly more popular than it had been, although it never became widely used.

The name “Jasmine” (with at least eight different possible spellings) was popularized by one of the 1980/90s Disney princesses. The name “Jennifer” was already extremely popular prior to “Love Story” but Love Story kept the name at the top of the list for another ten years at least. The name Luke was already rising in popularity before Star Wars came out, but the name absolutely skyrocketed in the decade or so after Star Wars was released.

When you say that people no longer seem to name their children after being inspired by someone famous, I think you are mistaken. The difference these days is that there are far more different ethnic groups, each with their own traditions and preferences; there are far more baby naming resources readily available, giving parents a wider choice of names; and the internet and 100 TV channels ensures that popular culture moves very fast — the top names “churn” far more quickly than they did in the past and some flash-in-the-pan names are briefly popular in a small geographical area, etc., but never make it to the Top 100 list. These days, Robert E. Lee would be famous for a few months and would have some baby boys named after him, but then a new trend would come along soon after that and the names “Robert” and “Lee” would start sliding down the chart.

The more that I think about it, the more convinced I become that giving a child a frivolous name is likely to indicate that the parents have a short-term time horizon (i.e. unable to envision the infant growing up and having to apply for college or for a job) and are more likely to have non-traditional values in general. It is also known that certain names are seldom chosen except by unwed mothers (e.g. “Stormie”) So don’t ask Trixiebelle for a date, because her mother has poor judgment, and her daddy didn’t have enough power in the relationship to veto a ridiculous name.

The Remarriage of Women by Age chart causes me to wonder if extroverted women are more likely to get divorced prior to 35 (when they have a large social network and a very good chance of remarrying) while introverted women perhaps stick with a not-so-good marriage until the children are grown and then divorce without ever intending to re-enter the dating pool. (In other words, the introverted women KNOW that they will end up living in a condo with a couple of cats, and they are looking forward to that outcome.)

John Winston Lennon – born 1940. Now, the only people named Winston are black men.

One likes to imagine that female movie stars have physical beauty (and also youth). but from my very limited viewing of recent Hollywood I do not find this to be the case. Zellweger (and I have only seen the first Bridget Jones) is in her mid forties but when younger was podgy and even when slimmer hardly beautiful. Compare that with – off the top of my head – these contemporaneous Italian sirens: Gina Lollobrigida, Claudia Cardinale, Sophia Loren, Monica Vitti, Virna Lisi, Pier Angeli.

For men, marriage is portrayed as a life-long commitment providing them long-term relationship security. For women, marriage is framed as a life-long commitment if they want it to be, but it they don’t like it they can get out of it. It is critical for the narrative that men go into marriage not realizing their wife-to-be considers it her God-given right to leave if and when she decides she wants out because none of them would do so, and I think that is partially why so many men aren’t getting married. Open hypergamy has made it impossible to conceal, and while there are plenty of mechanisms to keep married men in line there are n direct ways unmarried men can be coerced into tying the knot.

Agreed. Although I think the shift in men’s pursuit of marriage is probably more of a general cultural response to the new reality than a fully reasoned change of thought at the individual level. Otherwise we would have seen a much quicker response by men to the rapid divorce spike in the 70s and early 80s. The change in marriage rates we’ve seen has been quite gradual, and some of that change is no doubt due to women delaying marriage* (because of the way this impacts how we measure marriage rates).

Initially the cultural inertia worked in favor of those who merely wanted to renegotiate marriage without losing the benefits it provides to society. Ultimately though that same inertia will mean it not only takes us longer to recognize our mistake, it also will make recovering from the mistake harder and slower.

*In the past I’ve been hesitant to agree with the assertion that men were choosing to avoid marriage (a marriage strike). At the very least it has been hard to find clear data indicating this was the case (as opposed to say a remarriage strike). But I am working on a post that looks at some new (to me) data to try to make an inference here.

The Remarriage of Women by Age chart causes me to wonder if extroverted women are more likely to get divorced prior to 35 (when they have a large social network and a very good chance of remarrying) while introverted women perhaps stick with a not-so-good marriage until the children are grown and then divorce without ever intending to re-enter the dating pool. (In other words, the introverted women KNOW that they will end up living in a condo with a couple of cats, and they are looking forward to that outcome.)

This wouldn’t explain the data. Women are nearly as likely to be introverts as extroverts. The far simpler explanation does a much better job of explaining the trend. Women divorce based on their perceived chances in the remarriage market.

Italian women (especially Northern Italian), IME, seem to be the only western women a great number of whom, like Asian women, either age very slowly or seem to actually improve with age like fine wine. Sophia Loren is the prime example I can think of.

My fiance’s father was Northern Italian and, although she’s in her early 40s, she can easily pass for mid-20s (her OB/GYN told her she has the physical body of a 28-year-old). I’m hoping that she perpetuates the stereotype. So far, so good.

The Remarriage of Women by Age chart causes me to wonder if extroverted women are more likely to get divorced prior to 35 (when they have a large social network and a very good chance of remarrying) while introverted women perhaps stick with a not-so-good marriage until the children are grown and then divorce without ever intending to re-enter the dating pool. (In other words, the introverted women KNOW that they will end up living in a condo with a couple of cats, and they are looking forward to that outcome.)

And your explanations always cause me to redouble my efforts to destroy marriage utterly. It’s all a game and should be treated as such.

“Agreed. Although I think the shift in men’s pursuit of marriage is probably more of a general cultural response to the new reality than a fully reasoned change of thought at the individual level.”

I agree. I’ve spoken with several men who are reluctant to get married but they can’t articulate their reasoning, which is very similar to how I was before I took the Red Pill.

I look forward to reading your post on a marriage strike, but I’ll say now I agree with you that there isn’t a concerted effort by men. They’re responding to the incentives and disincentives in place. They’re not looking at it from the 30,000 ft. level and saying “I’ll avoid marriage in protest until this gets fixed.” They’re thinking, unconsciously, “what do I want, what provides it, and what do I have to do to get it?”

Marriage doesn’t offer what men want, doesn’t provide it, and mandates incredible requirements be met to get married.

Anonymous Reader is on a roll again. His arms must be tired after flying in here.

Fun Factoid: “Shirley” was originally a boys name.
I had a great-uncle with that name.
Surely, you must be joking.
Nope. Dead serious. Ever hear of Shirley Povich, famous sportswriter of the last century (and father of Trash TV host/”journalist” Maury Povich)?

I am glad I chose Italians, but I might equally have chosen French – Catherine Deneuve, Mylene Demongeot, Francoise Dorleac, Bridget Bardot,. Each country seems to produce something typical about themselves – surely the following are just somewhat prudish: Julie Andrews, Vanessa Redgrave, Julie Christie. English of course, but America seems lately to have produced Man-Jaws. – there are exceptions of course.

For feeriker, or others who don’t want to follow the link Lyn87 has provided, was making a pop culture joke reference. There is a running gag in the movie “Airplane” where the word “Surely” and the name “Shirley” are conflated, to comedic effect. The lead actor Leslie Neilsen (another man with a name which has become a girls’ name) frequently asks people to stop calling him “Shirley”.

@ Feminist Hater “And your explanations always cause me to redouble my efforts to destroy marriage utterly. It’s all a game and should be treated as such.”

Most people take marriage seriously, at least at the outset, although some do not. The problem seems to be primarily that a significant number of people take vows and then allow themselves an unprincipled exception later on when it becomes advantageous for them to leave the marriage for one reason or another. But only a very few sociopathic people treat marriage as a game.

I don’t understand why you would want to “destroy marriage utterly.” Most people who comment here hope for some sort of government or church reform that would radically reduce the number of divorces.

Of the French actresses you name, Catherine Deneuve and Brigit Bardot are the only two I’m familiar with. I haven’t seen Catherine of late, but Brigit has definitely NOT aged well at all. I suppose you could say that she’s done better in surviving life than other typical 82-year-old women of our respective countries (my mother is the same age as Brigit and, despite having taken very good care of herself over the years, Mom either doesn’t have Brigit’s Latin genes or just isn’t genetically programmed to age gracefully).

As for the English women you name, I haven’t seen any other the three in anything recent, but when I think of that generation of British actress today and how most of them have navigated the last half century, the first face that appears is “Judi Dench.” Not what I’d call an ideal to aspire to for aging gracefully, to put it kindly.

As for American actresses of that generation, I’m hardpressed to name even one at the same level as Julie Christie, let alone Sophia Loren. About the closest we had at one point was Goldie Hawn (who is almost a decade younger than the women we’re talking about above), but recent photos of her in public indicate that all the years of deferred aging suddenly caught up with her in one giant rush. Let’s just say that it (she) ain’t pretty…

Hahahaha…. I love “broken homes” mostly because it results in young women all looking for acceptance from older men who are “father figures” to them. I have no problem giving such young women the acceptance they crave for the small cost of their bodies, and they are more than happy to give. So why would I perceive a “broken home” as a failure? It provides me with what I want and need… It’s like the gift the keeps on giving… Of course women will blame me for giving young women what they crave, when they give me what I enjoy… But that is just like a feminist – not wanting a man to enjoy the world they have wrought. I didn’t make the world the way it is, and I can’t change it – only women can. But I can enjoy it just the way that it is…

feeriker: Apparently “Winston” was a popular name for baby boys in Britain during World War II in honor of Churchill. I’m hardpressed to think of a similar inspirational trend for names in modern-era America,

Radio host Neil Saavedra was born about the time that Neil Armstrong did his moon walk, so Saavedra’s father named him after the astronaut. Curious, that it was his father that chose his name, and not his mother.

Neil Saavedra believes that a lot of boys born around his time were named Neil.

Most people take marriage seriously, at least at the outset, although some do not. The problem seems to be primarily that a significant number of people take vows and then allow themselves an unprincipled exception later on when it becomes advantageous for them to leave the marriage for one reason or another. But only a very few sociopathic people treat marriage as a game.

I’m going to rewrite this paragraph as a man sees it.

Most women don’t take marriage seriously, right from the outset, although some rarely do. The problem seems to be primarily that a significant number of women treat their vows as a joke and don’t take them seriously and use any flimsy excuse or no excuse at all when it becomes advantageous for them to leave the marriage. Most women treat marriage as a game.

I must defend Judi Dench: once she was a babe and the only actress to strip off in the 1968 Midsummer Night’s Dream movie – and Helen Mirren (who was hot) was in that too as was Diana Rigg (who was also hot) – I had forgotten about her. I might also add – and I am guessing that this is something most American’s cannot say of their leading ladies, who don’t tend to tread the boards but remain in Hollywood which is I suppose largely theatre free – that I have seen Dench on stage a number of times and Redgrave and Rigg (who did strip off) likewise (though sadly not Mirren) though in their younger days.

None of this would have happened had not the ban on women appearing on stage been lifted after The Restoration (1660) and look what happened: leading actresses quickly became mistresses of the rich and powerful and the reputation of the actress has had a hard time recovering from that. They still do it – Grace Kelly, Jocelyn Lane both married minor European royalty. Much the same thing seems to have happened when in 1946 women were allowed to become Flight Attendants/Cabin Crew aka Trolley Dollies and for some it was closer to prostitution with certain passengers as much as the pilots but as the number of flights has increased the hotness of the flight attendants has decreased. I used to think dating a Trolley Dolly was out of my league but now I have dated two (though not at the same time and which is partly how I know about what goes on) I tend to regard them as below my league – which in a world where there are so many female execs (the new psuedo-prostitutes) taking business flights that is hardly surprising. What a terrible job it must be, Trolly-Dollying I mean – almost as bad as nightly pretending to be someone else and then having to disrobe in front of a thousand people or so – but all of course in the best possible taste and not at all gratuitous – or so the Producer says.

Is it any wonder then that actresses have a reputation for being unable to hold down a man that is to say are free and easy with their sexual favours. I was once but very temporarily romantically linked with a then minor Hollywood actress (on tour around Europe – I was with her in two different countries) . We did not end up in bed but she struck me as a nice person.

It will be interesting to see what Jolie does next. The divorce was a forgone conclusion, anyone could see that coming. But she prides herself on pushing the avant-garde envelope.
In the world her type has created, what could that possibly be?
Lesbian lover/marriage? Too cliche….
Sex change to a man? That’s cliche too these days.
Perhaps aa fun-filled family trip to Haiti with “Spirit dinners” and full conversion to voodoo?
Cannibalism?

Drake Baer actually looks, when you google his photographs, exactly like a person, who’d write what he wrote. Effeminate, validation-via-ideological ‘correctness’ -seeking pussy turned into lookswise pseudoalphaish narcissistic wiseass, with the vomit inducing self-absorbed substance radiating through from the inside, handling something what is serious life-altering deeply personal matter as kind of academic topic, to show off his wit and ‘unbiased perspective’ .
His “respectful, loving bond of 5 or 10 years” is one amazing example of in how noble and profound way a throwaway mentality in dealing with humans one made a vow to can be presented, and the delusion of making what is an act of destruction (especially when children involved) look like an act of courage would make one almost shed a tear.

Novaseeker, I would agree with you IF she were younger.
But she isn’t going to invite that sort of competition into her bedroom with a man. She hasn’t aged well. Jennifer Aniston now looks far younger than she does (though she’s eight years older). Hard living will do that.
I’ll bet she’ll go the Demi Moore route, but more like Demi-on-amphetamines.
Young man, with some unconventional and dark religion, from a third world country.

Yup. The wedding is “Princess Day”. It’s all about her, her groom is just another prop.

Being married? That’s drudgery, even if he does “his fair share” of the household chores. The carousel is much more fun to ride. And the truth no one seems to like to talk about: if a woman wants to cheat, it’s super easy for her to find a willing partner in crime. She doesn’t need game, wealth or fame. She won’t face much rejection. All she needs are average looks (and sometimes not even that) and if she lets it be known that she’s on the prowl for some strange (say on a business trip, where it can safely be kept a secret from dopey hubby back home), the men will line up for her. I’ve seen this happen to far too many friends.

Re the gross disrespect shown by that @ssclown actor in the revisionist “Hamilton” towards Vice-President-Elect Pence, when he asked about “protection” for diversities, I wish Pence had responded with this:

“It is the job of the police and military of your home nation to protect you, not that of the U.S. You should head back to your home country so you may receive that protection, and so as to continue receiving that protection, remain there for the rest of your life.”